Development economist Amirullah Khan explains the social indicators that show the stark deprivation of the majority of India’s Muslims, especially in education and employment. He talks about the different points in India’s history at which changes occurred. For example, he says, after the 1990s, jobs were mostly being created in India’s service and financial sectors, which required higher education. By then, there had been a huge drop in the education levels of Muslims compared to the rest of the population. This resulted in Muslims dropping out of employment as well and much of the Muslim workforce becoming “self-employed”. “In India, self-employed is poor,” Khan says. Khan explains access to healthcare and discrimination in civic and municipal services for Muslims, and where he sees hope for India’s Muslim community.
You can find the full video of this conversation on YouTube.
Glossary:
- SC, ST, OBC: Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC) are demographic categories in India of groups that have been historically discriminated against and marginalised, and therefore identified for affirmative action.
- Delhi violence: In early 2020, riots broke out in largely Muslim neighbourhoods in Northeast Delhi while protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act were taking place across the India. More than 50 people, most of them Muslims, were killed and incidents of police brutality and complicity were reported.
- Sachar committee: A high-level committee headed by Justice Rajendra Sachar and constituted in 2005 by Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister at the time, to examine the social, economic and educational status of Muslims in the country.
- PLFS: Periodic Labour Force Survey conducted by the National Statistics office to estimate employment and unemployment indicators.
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